Wednesday and Thursday, October 14-15
I had my one follow-up appointment with Dr. Boateng and the follow-up surgery team. I am doing incredibly well; we all came to the conclusion that I’m in about the 90th percentile of good recovery of heart surgery patients. This is only two weeks and two days after bypass surgery!
I’m going to miss all of the medical professionals at Mount Sinai. I’ve never had such a wonderful experience in hospital. The level of knowledge and skill, the kindness and appropriate firmness with which they treated me, the fine attention to infection control — all contributed to my being able to head home and continue what is a fine recovery.
I was able to nail down some concrete limits for heart rate, weight limits to bear on my arms, and a better timeline of recovery. I am going to have to rein myself in a bit and be especially careful of stressing the chest pectoral muscles and the sternum before they are ready to bear more of a load. This is something I have experienced before, with my hip, but my hip was screwed together. My sternum is held together with glue...!
Also, there is extensive healing going on under and in each pectoral muscle, necessitated on the left by moving a large artery and repurposing it to feed my heart and on both sides with the need to open my chest to access the heart. The total timeframe is about three months (probably a bit more) with possible additional physical therapy once the chest has sufficiently healed. The idea is to get blood moving without stress in the upper body, and using the lower body to deepen breathing and gradually get the heart beating faster over a period of several weeks.
One more PT visit, then I’m on my own. I see Dr. Sternheim, my Cardiologist, at Elmhurst on 10/20. Check shortly after that for another post.
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